Adobe support states that "Press and hold AltControlShift (Windows) or OptionCommandShift (Mac OS) as you start Illustrator." or deleting the AIPrefs from the application folder will delete the prefs file and reset the prefs. NOT TRUE!

The keyboard commands do NOT work. You must manually delete the file. I have tested this exhaustively on a PC (win 7 64bit/CS 5.5) and on Macs.

Please, Adobe, update you application support to reflect this appalling shortcoming.

This photoshop instruction manual says to press alt/command/shift (on a mac) will reset the prefs, but the Illustrator manual says to find the current Illustrator preferences and save them. Having failed to find the startup drive/Users/(username)/Library/Preferences/Adobe Illustrator CS5 Settings/en_US (where they are supposed to be), I'm not getting very far. Please help.

One thing it´s good to know is in Windows systems..normally the folder where AiPrefs are located is an hidden folder. So...to have a good shortcut...it´s best to type AiPrefs in Windows search engine (or Adobe Illustrator Prefs in the Mac OS finder).

And like this page in user guide describe, it´s safe to remove the entire Adobe Illustrator CS5 Settings folder. This folder contains various preferences that can be regenerated.

can anyone help me...I make rectangle and then try to scale down and they go out of shape, and this is happening on text as well. I thought it was the stroke preference in the preference panel but it is on to keep the strokes even while scaling. I cannot for the life of me figure out what is happening. As an example.... I make a rectangle box to make the plug for an electrical socket (very rustic), and then I put two rectangle "Prongs" coming out of it...when I scale it down the two prongs are WAY out of shape, one being almost gone but a faint line, the other is almost as thick as three would be together. I have typed plug beside it and once resized the word plug is crazy too with the l as a faint lin and the g has the bottom cut off....please can anyone answer this question asap....?

Thanks Jacob, it was the align to pixel grid....I thought I had un-checked it so I wasn't using it, but saw when you mentioned it that I had in fact turned it back on. Thanks so much, a lot of future headaches averted....LOL

HELP!! I removed the Illustrator folder after reading, "Note: It is safe to remove the entire Adobe Illustrator CS5 Settings folder. This folder contains various preferences that can be regenerated." I removed it from my HD but didn't trash it, put it on the desktop. When I opened Illustrator again I have lost all the tools. There is not longer the settings for Essentials, Painting, etc. When I click on the drop down Window for tools, they are all gone. I've rebooted the computer but nothing has changed. I'm freeking out because I am working on a final presentation!